The Indian Finance Ministry has imposed definitive anti-dumping duty on certain seamless tubes and pipes from China for a period of five years.

This follows the recommendations of the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in its final findings on the sunset review investigations initiated by it in February this year. The final findings — which came out on July 31 this year — had recommended continued imposition of anti-dumping duty for five years.

It may be recalled that the anti-dumping investigation concerning imports of the seamless tubes and pipes was originally initiated on July 8, 2015. The Revenue Department had imposed provisional anti-dumping duty on May 17, 2016 and the definitive anti-dumping duty was imposed on February 17, 2017.

This duty was set to expire on May 16 this year, but was later extended to October 31, 2021. Now the anti-dumping duty has been extended by five more years, official sources said.

ISMT and Jindal Saw Ltd had filed the application for initiation of sunset review investigation on the imports from China.

Anti-dumping duties are usually levied to provide a level playing field to the domestic industry against any surge in low cost imports. They are not meant to restrict imports or cause an appreciable increase in cost of imports.

The latest anti-dumping duty will vary depending on the “landed value”. It has been pegged as a difference between “landed value” and the amount mentioned in the duty table (ranges from $961.33 to $1,610.67 per tonne) notified by the Revenue Department.

The Modi-led government has been taking efforts to reduce India’s dependence on goods manufactured in China and push self reliance. India’s bilateral trade with China is on track to hit the $100-billion mark this year and already surpassed $90 billion in the first nine months of calendar 2021. This is near 50 per cent increase on a year-on-year basis. India’s trade deficit with China had ballooned to $46.55 billion in the first nine months of this calendar year. This was higher than the trade deficit of $44.02 billion in 2020-21.

Source: THB